Temptations and talking radios
by GoAskAllyse
Summary: Why would a young scientist talk to his radio? More importantly, why would he listen to its suggestions? Why follow its instructions? He built the machine, he flipped the switch, but the big question is... why?
1. It's Higgsbury, Sir

Wallace Avery sat at his desk at the patent office, staring at the little man across from him. Wilson was a creature with all the muscle and stature of a man who lived in the woods, albeit poorly. No mater what sort of labor he did there was nothing that would change the fact that the scientist was slender with a slight build and baby face. He was dark-and-pale contrast written over second-hand fineries; Wilson presented as a gentleman, regardless of station. He looked like his mother.

"Wilson Astor," Mr. Avery said in his low, gruff voice.  
"It's- Higgsbury, sir," the seemingly youthful man cleared his throat, sheepish.  
"Ngh. Right."

The man at the desk gave a wave of his hand, dismissing the correction. He was rotund figure with his thick moustache and greying hair. Avery had the physique of an athlete who retired into opulence and corpulence in his older years. He was large in both weight and stature- even sitting he seemed to tower over the scientist. His arms were thicker than Wilson's thighs (which, honestly wasn't hard to do, but we digress.)

Wallace Avery had seen plenty of quack scientists and delusional inventors in his time but this kid? He took the cake. His secretary couldn't contain her laughter when she'd said the young man made an appointment to discuss… something. Something with molecules? Something about lightning and chemical whosits which, frankly, all sounded a tad more like alchemy than any science _Avery_ had heard of. The older man's head turned towards a gilded clock sitting on corner of his before settling back on Wilson.

"Now," Wallace started, "What was it that you were bringing to my office again?"  
"Oh! It's- uhm- it's really pretty great, I think- I mean, this could really be revolutionary in whichever field it's applied to, there's so many different uses!" Wilson put his hand up and leaned over to the side. Retrieving his bag from its place on the floor, the scientist produced an ordinary-looking pencil. He handed it over to the large man at the desk whilst wearing a self-satisfied smile. Wilson's smile was the kind that children wore when they made a particularly remarkable finger painting. Unfortunately for Wilson, Wallace Avery had never really liked children _or_ finger paintings. He stared at the pencil, clearly unimpressed.

"Go on, take it," the young man was undeterred.  
"What are you getting at," he said as he snatched the pencil from his hands, "it's just a pencil."  
"Break it."

The man's burly hands took the pencil in both hands and pulled, waiting for the sound of a satisfying crack but there was nothing. The pencil didn't budge. He looked back, tried again, then a third time before he glowered at the scientist.

"Astor, is this some sort of magic tri -"  
"-it's Higgsbury, sir-"  
"You brought me some kind of novelty toy and you are wasting my time. If you don't get to the point soon-"  
"-I'm getting there-"  
"-and stop **interrupting** ," Avery glowered at the younger man. Wilson's throat was suddenly dry, but Avery barreled forward, "I will have to bar you from _attempting_ to do business with this patent office again."  
"No no no no no- wait!" he put his hands up and stood, bag tumbling off his lap. Wilson scrambled to pick it up and fish the little vials and a beaker out for a demonstration, "by chemically manipulating the electron bonds in a substance you can fundamentally alter its structural integrity. Change its boiling point, tensile strength- **electrical conductivity.** You're holding a tiny, portable lightning rod! And with enough modification it wouldn't be difficult to actually retain… that… electrical… potential?"

The fat business man's eyes were glassy and his jaw slack before he realized he'd rendered himself a human flytrap and shut it. The pencil- seemingly indestructible- sat discarded on the desk. It was no wonder people in that little Podunk town of his thought he was crazy. The fervor in geniuses was hard to mistake, and they rode a line between brilliance and slipping sanity. Wilson was lost in his own world—a dumb delighted smile on his freshly-shaven cheeks.

"Um, if… I'm remembering correctly… Edison's patent on lightbulbs extends only to those using a carbon filter? A-a-a-and this?" Wilson scrambled to pick up the pencil, though his awkward baby gazelle fumbling sent him sprawled on the desk. From that angle, the peculiar way his hair seemed to fall into a W shape was more obvious. It was almost cartoonish in a way; Wilson Higgsbury was theatrical without ever having to try.

Wallace Avery pointedly looked at his clock before turning his attention back to the young man sprawled on his desk. He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under what years of a privileged life had afforded him- a full belly and an office chair solid enough for President Taft.

"Mister Avery, _please_ ," Wilson keened, "this is a break through. This process I've developed h-h-has so many applications, the smallscale lightning rod is… is…"  
"It's _what_ , Wilson? You're telling me you made an _indestructible electricity pencil_ with that little chemistry set of yours that you're so keen on playing with? You're here, and you're _only_ here, because I have a soft spot for charity cases like you," he hissed. Avery stood up from his chair and straightened his vest, "you want to re-make a lightbulb?"

"It's not just a lightbulb! This is reusable energy, reusable resources! This compound could make clothes stop wearing down, i-it could-it could make an axe or a pick or a hoe or a-a-a shovel stronger- people wouldn't have to _replace_ so much! You could have portable, sustainable energy that you can just _recharge-_ "  
"If we make things indestructible, what will people have to _buy_?"

William Avery's voice was a goat's head burr stuck in Wilson's throat- an uncomfortable thing made infinitely moreso by where it chose to hit. He narrowed his eyes at the older man as he took the opportunity to put himself back into order. "How do you think your daddy was able to keep you and Mommy in that ugly little hovel of yours? Hidden away all nice and pretty instead of with his _real_ family? **Commerce.** A lust for taking what he wanted and making something great out of it and you can't do that if you just give things way. This isn't some utopia, Astor-"  
"My name is Wilson Percival Higgsbury you greedy, _ignorant_ **_walrus_**!"

Wilson immediately clamped his hands over his mouth.

A full beat passed.

Wallace Avery strode towards the young man, his face all red and a low growl riding on every breath exhaled. His meaty hand gripped the back of Wilson's jacket and shirt, rumpling the collar and fabric in the process. The younger man went deadweight like a non-compliant toddler though it did little good to stop the older man from parading him through the front lobby.

Wilson tumbled through the unlocked French doors, ousted like a drunkard in a saloon. It took whatever failing graces he had to keep from cracking his head on the cobblestone beneath him. He wasn't allowed the peace to lick his wounds before Avery threw his things back at him. The bag. The pencil. The vials-

 _The vials._ Wilson went ashen.

"Wait! Don't- please!" Wilson scrambled to sit up, to gain his feet, to try and stop the man before-

The soft, crystalline of glass shattering was deafening, regardless of how insignificant the sound was to the world around. Avery, head of the patent office- friend of one bank president Edward Astor- cast the vials the scientist had left on his desk into the street. His eyes fixed upon the scientist on his knees. The desperation with which he was trying to salvage his stupid little bottles would have been pitiable were Avery a man who pitied others.

"Go home, don't come back until you understand how the world works, _Wilson_ Astor," with that the businessman slammed the door behind him, locking the ornate glass doors with an almost theatrical click. Wilson, however, sat transfixed on the ground. His shoulders folded inward and his brows knit together. His eyes, rust-colored and tired, studied the play of light on the gossamer liquid. He reached forward, fingertips trembling and breath uneven. _Three months, gone,_ he thought _._

"Stupid," he hissed as he pulled himself to his feet. Wilson collected himself, and started along his way to the railroad tracks. He'd never been a fan of freight hopping, but it was the only way he'd get home before dark. Night had started to feel thicker to him, shadows gripping more of what lived in their domain, though perhaps it was merely his imagination.

Whatever the case, Wilson Higgsbury was wasting daylight.

* * *

 **author notes:** things work a lot nicer when I can format paragraphs and line breaks like you can in a word processor. As such, it makes back-and-forth dialogue difficult to format. Also, if you find typos or grammatical problems please, please, please let me know! Also also, anyone who can get me some way to indent a paragraph gets... uh... I don't know. My undying affection? Bad fan art? I have no idea, but I'm not above bribery.


	2. Old Dixieland Jazz Band

He got home by the time the sun was falling into the mountains behind the little farmhouse. For over thirteen years, Wilson Higgsbury had lived in solitude at this "hovel" as Wallace Avery had called it. Two stories plus the attic with no porch to speak, the farmhouse had little farm to speak of. The scientist passed along the dirt path through the trees, the scent of pines soaking into his jacket and hair. His attention fell to the _private property_ sign he'd passed on the way in. It sat off-balance in the soft ground, set even more off-balance by a particularly large cardinal landing on it and abruptly taking off upon realizing Wilson's attention was on it.

Wilson had a grand total of two signs on his property- the one that warded off trespassers and the one that read _genius at work_ that hung on the ramshackle fence he'd only loosely maintained over the years. He passed the sign, keeping his eyes on the front door instead of drifting to the abandoned garden patch to his right or the meticulously kept headstone to his left. It never did any good, though. Every time Wilson passed through to his front door, he'd look at her. _Victoria Justine Higgsbury_ \- she'd be gone fourteen years tomorrow. There were few things Wilson cared to maintain around this place; his priorities were elsewhere but that was one he did not abandon as he aged. His stomach turned and he turned away from the gravestone. _You can tell her later,_ Wilson thought, _just... not now._

When he entered, he threw his jacket onto the banister as he tromped up the stairs. Wilson's steps were deceptively heavy for a man of his stature. The sound reverberated through the stairs into the unused bedrooms- one for guests, one for a ghost, and one for a scientist who fell asleep in his lab more than his own bed. Wilson stretched his arms above his head and hopped to grab the rope to the trap door to the attic. His laboratory. It had been his lab for as long as he could remember because it was nearly impossible to keep him out, so his mother had finally relented when he was ten. Once upon a time in his formative years she believed that if he couldn't reach the means to get into the attic he would stop trying to play up there. The ladder slid down and he pulled down to let it come the rest of the way.

When the door opened, he found himself greeted by the sound of his radio playing. With the antennae on top of the roof, the scientist could reach radio stations halfway across the state. Not too long ago, the solitude started to feel more like isolation and he craved some sort of distraction from the sound of birds and Bunsen burners. He'd found it in the Original Dixieland Jazz Band- the first recording of its kind to be played on the air. Wilson promised himself he'd go to New Orleans someday and see some city full of superstition and jazz; he never considered himself a fan of the arts until he'd heard Livery Stable Blues. The false whinny of a horse played through the air. Wilson paused.

 _Did I leave the radio on last night?_ He thought.

Wilson climbed the ladder and pulled the trapdoor shut behind him. The scientist stood in the burgeoning darkness and closed his eyes. One window was boarded up and the other was cracked though still provided a pretty view of the trees outside. The lab itself was clean and organized; it was a place devoted to science save for a few creature comforts- namely the red tufted chair sitting next to the radio. His work bench was covered in supplies and notes- all things to remember before he went to the patent office.

Three months of work. Gone.

"Right," he took in a sharp breath, "back to work."

The sun slipped from the sky and a crescent moon turned to take its place. Wilson Higgsbury had no real concept of time when he was working in his laboratory, only the cues of sunrise and sunset. He was on the edge of recreating the formula he had worked on before; now that he wasn't having to find it, recreation of it should have been easy. The mixture bubbled in the beaker as the scientist smiled to himself.

It was going so _well_ this time! There were none of the telltale signs of instability in the compound. Wilson turned from the beaker briefly, retrieving a test tube and inspecting it in the lamp light. The sodium sulfate had integrated into the water sample perfectly, now all he had to do was carefully-

 **BOOM.**

* * *

Wilson wasn't sure how long he'd been out, but his head cracked the floor hard enough that his teeth hurt. While the concussive force hadn't been enough to cause structural damage, it had been enough to send the man sprawling and knock the wind out of him. The room was spinning; Wilson felt like he was going to be sick.

He pulled himself to his feet, stumbling towards the work bench and using it as a brace so he could push the window open. The place needed some air. The music had long since gone off on the radio and all that filled the room was the sound of static and Wilson's pained breathing. Not choosing to linger there long, he sought out the comfort of one comfortable piece of furniture in the lab.

The scientist collapsed backwards into the chair, shoulders drooping and chest aching for reasons more than the minor explosion in the lab. "I just want something to work," he said to no one in particular. Of course to no one in particular- there was no one else for miles.

A voice came through the static on the radio. It was smooth and deep but the static garbled it badly enough that it sounded like something was talking with him, something with a voice like shadows.

"Say pal, looks like you're having some trouble."


End file.
